From the mind of Mary Purdy: A collection of true personal essays, creative outbursts, humorous monologues and other sundry offerings that necessitated translating ideas and whims from the brain onto the keyboard.

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6/13/12

Standing Again for The First Time (or, "My Dad's New Feet")

My parents have lived in the same
apartment in New York City for over thirty years. When they bought their home,
the Upper West Side neighborhood was sketchy; I was mugged just two blocks from
home on my tenth birthday. But the place is huge and it has an incredible view
overlooking the Hudson River and Riverside Park. It’s filled with relics that my parents have
collected from their years of trips and residencies overseas. Naked statues
from Africa and Asia sit coupled on many shelves, with genitalia that reach out
and wrap around each other’s necks, Tibetan Tonkas adorn several walls, and
batiks runners line every surface. For years, even the TV was covered by a
batik screen in order to minimize what my parents considered to be an eyesore
in the house. Beautiful dishes from my great grandparents are on permanent display—cut-glass
bowls, an old silver tea set. The
apartment is elegantly homey with an ethnic flair, and my parents relish the
time they spend there together. Every
morning for thirty years, they’ve sat in bed overlooking the river as they have
their coffee—my dad on the right side, my mom on the left—talking about their
days, their memories, their kids, and anything else that occurs to them over
French Roast and steamed milk.

On this November morning, I take the subway to my
parents’ apartment. It is sunny with
only a slight chill in the air. As I
walk into the lobby of their building, I am greeted by Tommy, the ageless
doorman I’ve known for twenty-five years, who always stretches out his arms to
embrace me as if I’ve just returned home from a long journey instead of a thirty-block
ride on mass transit.

“Today’s the day!”
I tell him cheerily.

“Is that right?” he replies with a toothy grin and
watches me walk up the stairs toward the elevator.

Inside my parents’ apartment, I find my mom in the
kitchen cleaning up after breakfast, wearing one of my dad’s old white T-shirts. I beam at her.

“It’s the big day!” I blurt. “Can you believe it?!”

“I know,” my mom says warmly, smiling. “I gave your dad
a good breakfast: Cream of Wheat.” My family has always believed that Cream of
Wheat has special powers to warm, heal, strengthen and solve any problem one
might have to face during the day. Not
the instant kind, but the kind that takes twenty minutes to cook—a sure sign
that its nutrients were allotted the proper amount of time to become the
forceful warriors they have the potential to be.

“That’s great,
Mom. Where’s Dad?” I ask.

“In the
bedroom,” she says and sends me off with a pat on the butt, the way she used to
when I was a kid. I make my way to my
parents’ bedroom in the back of the apartment, armed with my bouquet of flowers
and the Cliff Energy bar I have brought to ensure that my dad is up for the
challenge ahead should the Cream of Wheat somehow falter.

“DAD!” I exclaim, as I make my entrance into the
room. Ever since he got sick, I have
made it a habit to greet him with the utmost enthusiasm, hoping that somehow my
proclamations would give him more strength.
He is sitting in his wheelchair at his desk writing a thank-you note. My
heart swells with love for him as he turns, smiling and outstretching his arms
to give me a hug.

“Oh, Mary, can
you believe it?” he says. I notice that he has gained some much-needed weight
in his face. He has a look in his eyes that mixes hope with anticipation. This
day has been a long time coming for him, too. With my brother living and
working overseas, it was decided that I would be the one to accompany him to East
73rd Street. This will give my mom a break from it all—to be alone
in the house to tend to her life and the piles of paper that have accumulated
over the months. I hand my dad the small gifts in celebration of the day and we
make our way outside to await Access-a-Ride, a van service that transports the
wheelchair-bound to various destinations.
I had never noticed them before. Now when I see them, I smile at the
drivers, holding myself back from saluting them in gratitude.

Five months earlier, my dad had both of his lower legs
amputated after a battle with a rare disease called meningococcemia—a bacterial
infection that shuts down vital organs in hours. No one could say how he had
contracted it, only that he was lucky to be alive. His skin had been severely
damaged. Much of the damage to his legs
was irreparable, causing the tissue to slowly die and leaving no other choice
but amputation.

We had spent those first ten anxious days not knowing
whether he would live or die. He
remained on full life support, unconscious to the world. My mom, brother and I sang
“If I Had a Hammer” and “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” to his immobile
body and posted colorful words of hope and pictures on his hospital walls to
greet him when he finally opened his eyes.
We watched him struggle to recover in the hospital for three-and-a-half
months, half-conscious, drugged, in physical therapy, in pain. It had seemed much more like a bad dream than
something that actually could have happened. Especially to him—one of the
kindest and most good-hearted people I knew. He survived against the odds. And when he finally came home, we had figured
out how one navigates an apartment where the kitchen won’t easily accommodate a
wheelchair and where taking a bath becomes an hour-long obstacle course.

My dad loved to do a houseful of small domestic things—standing
at the ironing board and pressing pillowcases, perching on top of the radiator to
water the plants, fervently vacuuming the crumbs that my mom, the less fastidious
half of the couple, had dropped on the ground—things that were not possible
without legs. For the first time in thirty-five
years, my parents had to switch the sides of the bed on which they slept
because the space between the wall and the bed on my dad’s accustomed side was
too narrow for his wheelchair.

But today was a new beginning. Off in the distance, with only Central Park
between us, lay a pair of titanium prosthetic legs with my dad’s name on
them. How on earth would they work? How does one stand without feeling the
ground? When would life ever feel normal?
I push these doubts out of my head as we reach the prostheticist’s
office, a lackluster gray building on York Avenue and East 73rd Street.
You could easily pass by this place without noticing it. Its immediate interior is even less
impressive than its pasty outside. It has
a whitish gray color with two glass doors and a dimly lit hallway. Ignoring the
yellow-stained walls reminiscent of the Department of Motor Vehicles, I grab my
dad’s hand in anticipation of what lies beyond that dreary doorway.

Once on the fifth floor, we sit in the waiting area
for what seems like forever, trying not to stare at the patients who pass by
with prosthetic limbs of various sizes and shapes. Finally we are ushered to an undecorated room
with two chairs, a sink and a raised padded platform. My dad transfers himself
from his wheelchair to this platform and, as we wait for the prosthetist, he
removes the protective coverings from his legs. What’s revealed are technically
called stumps now, but somehow the word doesn’t slip off the tongue easily; it feels
like you are saying something insulting.
I glance at the discolored, damaged skin that surrounds the area where his
legs were removed, feeling taken aback even though I have seen it dozens of
times. I‘m overwhelmed with anger and
outrage at whatever it was that allowed this to happen to him. It’s so brutal, so awful, and so unfair. His hair is grayer, his body thinner, and his
eyes more withdrawn. I’m ashamed that I
can barely remember what he looked like with his olive skin, his perpetual grin
and his long, lean legs. Why hadn’t I
taken a better look back before all this happened?

But I smile at him. “You OK?”

“Sure!” he
replies. We wait without speaking.

In walks the prosthetist, titanium legs in hands. He is huge, and he looks and talks like a
less goofy version of Gomer Pyle. He
captivates us with a lengthy explanation of how the new faux limbs will
work. He produces two green and gray
silicone leggings to slip over my dad’s stumps.
Each has what looks like a metal drill attached to its end that will
snap securely into the prosthetic leg, contraptions for which we have brought a
pair of my dad’s loafers. The loafers
look odd on these detached feet impaled by the titanium poles—as if they were
an afterthought, a mistake, an old umbrella left at a diner. I am taking photos
of the process with my six-dollar disposable camera, wondering all the while to
whom I will show them.

Dr. Gomer Pyle finishes his explanation. With deep
breaths, my dad and I peer at each other to see if we are ready to make the
leap from imagination to reality. Gently
the leggings go on, followed by what will soon be a familiar sound of metal
snapping into place. Suddenly these miracle legs are attached to my dad, he is
hoisted up, and for the first time in five months, he stands. His expression is funny as he sways back and
forth, holding my hand so tightly that I begin to lose feeling. The look is curious and fearful at the same
time, like a child entering an unfamiliar situation. I can tell that he wants to feel confident
but just isn’t quite there.

“I feel like
I’m going to fall down,” he keeps repeating.
“I feel so tall.” It’s an ironic declaration since, with his new legs,
he is actually two inches shorter than his former 6’2”.

“Try walking
forward,” Gomer suggests. My dad takes
two tentative baby steps with me on one arm and Gomer’s assistant on the other.
He is wobbly but perseverant, ignoring the pain that I know is shooting through
the confused nerves at the ends of his stumps.
Fifteen minutes later, he has strolled around the small office a couple of
times and has pared down to just one walking assistant: me, silently rejoicing
and trying not to cry at what has felt like an impossibility for so long. The whole experience is surreal. You expect your dad to be there when you take
your first steps, but you never imagine you’ll be there for him to take his.

Our first visit to this ordinary yet magical place has
come to an end. Access-a-Ride awaits downstairs and shuttles us home, where I
know my mom is eagerly awaiting the news of how it all went. We make our way through the lobby where Sal,
the afternoon doorman from Bosnia, greets us warmly and nods his head
approvingly at the loafers peeking out from beneath my dad’s pant legs.

Up at the apartment, my mom opens the door to welcome
us.

“How was it? How was it?” she asks. “Let’s see them!” She is breathless, anxious
and happy. She has been waiting for this
moment for months. With a little help from me, my dad manages to stand to give
my mom her first vertical hug since last May.
He rests his head on her shoulder as they embrace, the way a sleepy
infant digs his face into its mother’s neck late at night. He sits back down in the wheelchair and I can
sense his pride about the day’s events as well as his relief that they are
over. The lump in my throat looms large as
I remember my dad’s homecomings from business trips long ago; I would watch my
parents embrace, gleefully shouting “Kiss! Kiss!” as he stepped off the elevator. My heart is
filled with the sensation of joyful bursting coupled with heavy sorrow. I take
out my camera again to capture them silently, wearily gazing at one another.

In this instant, I feel like an outsider peering into
a moment of intimacy I had never before witnessed. My dad almost looks like a gentleman caller
coming to woo. And my mom, standing there still wearing my dad’s old white T-shirt
from the morning, has never looked so beautiful.

Recently, I asked my dad what it was like for him to
come home and have the ability to stand on two feet in the apartment after
being in a wheelchair for so many months. He said it was the simple things that
he appreciated: being able to set the table just the way he liked it, with the
glass in its proper spot on the upper right-hand corner; finally standing
upright and shaving at his mirror above the sink; picking up the slippers that
my mom had carelessly left under the dining room table. But mostly, he said, it
was the joy of being able to look at my mom at eye level and to hold her winter
coat open for her before the two of them made their way out of the door to
their next four-legged New York adventure.

4 comments:

this is beautiful mary. as you may or may not know, we lost my dad to cancer 2 and a half years ago and the last thing i said to him before getting on my plane was You are the kindest man I've ever known. so when you said that about your dad -- well, wow. i got a bit vaklempt as they say... are you still living in seattle? i actually don't remember why you moved there.... for a "fellow" (as my dad would say)? school?

if you ever come to rome, italy or even europe in general, let me know!!!

Terianne! I am honored that you read this piece! Thank you. I do remember hearing about your dad and I'm so sorry. Kind dads are so hard to lose, eh?I am in Seattle and am getting hitched in TWO WEEKS from today!

Would love to pay a visit to Italy. So glad you are still there. Someday...

Beautifully written. I have been struggling through an assortment of age related health challenges with my dad over the past months. The happy news is that he is doing quite well now... but your essay captured a lot of the hard (and happy) side of this sort of journey.